A GREENPEACE website is encouraging Weaver Vale residents to check whether their property is being considered by the government as a potential fracking site.

Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, involves drilling into the ground for a high-pressured water, sand and chemical mixture to be fired at the shale rock beneath, releasing gas and oil.

The website, wrongmove.org, asks participants to enter their postcode before flagging up the nearest ‘not for shale’ points – with several sites around Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich.

Greenpeace Energy Campaigner Leila Deen questioned the potential long-term health impacts from industrial activity, traffic and the process of fracking.

"The government has so far responded to these risks by cutting the budget of the environmental regulator and effectively allowing companies to mark their own homework when it comes to monitoring,” she said.

However, Graham Evans, MP for Weaver Vale, said there are currently no plans in place for fracking in his constituency.

“Northwich is a town which has built been built on the harnessing of Cheshire’s natural resources,” he explained.

“I have communicated with the Department for Energy and Climate Change and there are no licences for permission to explore for shale gas or hydraulically fracture (frack).

“There are also no applications for licences to explore for shale gas in Weaver Vale.”

No such system has taken place in the UK before, but Public Health England believes potential risks in other countries have been due to operational failure rather than the process of fracking.

Dr John Harrison, director of PHE’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, said: “The currently available evidence indicates that the potential risks to public health from exposure to emissions associated with the shale gas extraction process are low, if operations are properly run and regulated.

“Good on-site management and appropriate regulation of all aspects of exploratory drilling, gas capture as well as the use and storage of fracking fluid is essential to minimise the risks to the environment and health.”